My first complete skit from an idea onto paper and then realized in Cinema 4D. The contest topic was particles and I managed to cram multiple cheesy puns.

The footage is done entirely in a single C4D project file with no post processing and no scene cuts. All camera changes are keyframes of the stage object. The camera on the silent film text segments has a simple vibrate tag. The music comes from here.

Here’s my entry to the Reddit /r/Cinema4D Contest. It all started with a little discovery and tweaking that turned into one large idea. Being relatively new to C4D, I decided to go into this direction instead of an actual sketch styled render with realistic objects.

Originally I was thinking of doing it at 15fps so I manually twisted a waveform to click at 15 hertz that would match the intro build up animation of the landscape. Eventually the animation seemed to look better at 30fps, but I kept the sound at 15.

The music is by myself in FL studio, I was going for a droney, spacey melody the way certain tracks are by Tycho. Overall this piece is basically a non-realtime demoscene type of music video.
Unfortunately video codecs aren’t designed for an animation of dots changing position every frame, so you can download a higher than vimeo quality version along with some test frame renders, most of which aren’t seen in the video:

The idea of this mix set was to transition from so-called ‘light’ drum and bass tracks towards ‘dark’ ones. For the cover image, I started arranging the words and three point lighting, enhancing the meaning of the individual words.

By this time, it’s taking almost 30 seconds to render a single frame just with medium quality global illumination. I wondered what kind of video can be made out of this along with what kind of alternate lighting could fit well with the idea. Turning off individual lights looked real nice, but once ambient occlusion was enabled and GI quality was turned up, a single frame is taking well beyond a minute. How could I even think of rendering a 70 minute video out of Cinema 4D?

While making test renders per light, the quick fix came… what if the images were loaded into Photoshop as layers, could opacity really end up looking as if the light intensity is realistically changing? Turns out this method works great as long as at least one light is exactly the same between two renders being blended.

Still in Photoshop, I needed to put some information on this cover image, so I chose my font, arranged it, added a very light drop shadow, then took it to After Effects to check if the same looking result can be done. Sure enough, being another Adobe product, the same drop shadow values match Photoshop’s and the opacity blend looks great in motion.

This is a blatantly simple example, but I can imagine running into this method again to change lighting through compositing instead of rendering in an animation (or even adventure game?), particularly if only the background needs to change.

One other SUPER EZ corner cut was an After Effects script that takes an .SRT format subtitle file and converts it to text with accurate keyframes for display.

Anyway, the final video is here if you actually want to hear the music play along with the (much much longer) video transitions you just saw.

Here I was messing around with abstract polygonal shapes, moving vertices around while using an isometric camera and somewhat flat lighting with ambient occlusion. This video contains the renders that were made while tweaking the positions, pausing on the better looking shots.

I’ve been trying out Cinema 4D very recently, I’m liking its workflow and features. Here’s a freshly made animation using the Sound effector to animate some Cloner cubes. I tweaked its settings so it looks decent for this audio and manually did the keyframes for the camera cuts. Yes I do now realize that these colors don’t play well with LCD response times.

It’s been a while since I made an unboxing video, the previous ones being Bioshock 2 Special Edition and Mass Effect 2 Collector’s Edition. Now it’s time for LittleBigPlanet 2 Collector’s Edition. Check out the unboxing video and the photos below. Nothing really comes close to what was crammed into Bioshock’s box, but this one is alright. “Sackboy” feels decent in quality, other than the plastic zipper. The bookends look nice, but are slightly flimsy. Finally, 11 costumes for the game are included in the package, plus 5 PSN avatars. There is no special cover for the disc or case, just a voucher with the code for the avatars and in-game costumes.

Just like the Mass Effect 2 post, I made an unboxing video. Now this is quite a special edition, coming with the original Bioshock music on an actual vinyl record! There’s also a music CD with the music of Bioshock 2. Then there are 3 posters of ‘advertisements’ from Rapture. Finally, a full sized, full length artbook! The game’s own case also differs from the regular edition by having a holographic cover. Color manual is good, hope the regular versions are the same. Everything is enclosed in a pretty nice and sturdy box, too. I pre-ordered from FutureShop since there was some 10%-off online only sale, almost canceling out the tax, plus the price was unusually low compared to everyone else (FS totaled $91, while everyone else STARTED at $90 or $100, even $110 for console versions). The shipping box also looks like it’s what Take2 directly sends to stores.

In addition to these photos, I made a video. The artbook and general packaging is a bit underwhelming, but that’s probably why the whole thing is only $10 more than the regular edition. A black and white manual is lame for any game, especially if it’s limited. Apparently I got the last one in the ‘district’ (whatever that is… Scarborough area?) from FutureShop. Though if I waited, I could have snagged it for around $45 from Amazon soon after. Those dang fingerprints on dark ink…